Arizona Coyotes: Did Chayka Win The Michael Stone Trade?
Arizona Coyotes general manager John Chayka traded Michael Stone to the Flames for a third round draft pick and a conditional fifth round pick. Did the Yotes new GM get enough?
Yesterday John Chayka kicked off what may become a trading frenzy for the Arizona Coyotes.
He shipped defenseman Michael Stone to Calgary for draft picks and the reaction was mixed.
Analysts and some fans thought the Flames had been fleeced by the rookie GM.
Other Yotes fans felt Chayka sold too soon, selling low in a market that he has virtually cornered for the next week.
The truth is Chayka got more or less what Stone is worth.
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It’s true that Stone was coming off of a breakout, 36 point season in 2015-16.
He also wasn’t afraid to fire the puck on net, which is an admirable trait on a Yotes team that seems particularly averse to shooting the puck.
Unfortunately, it’s also true that the 26-year-old defenseman was coming off of a catastrophic knee injury and has been a shell of himself for the majority of the 2016-17 season.
One could argue Stone took full advantage of playing alongside Oliver Ekman-Larsson last year, and this year he floundered no matter where he was placed in the lineup. Last season Stone was one of the better possession drivers on the team, but this season his score-adjusted Corsi For percentage was 42.55.
That’s second worst on the team for players who began the season in a Coyotes’ jersey.
His pairing with Alex Goligoski, in particular, felt like a bad match but it was also one Dave Tippett utilized often. Goligoski and Stone had a 42.16 score-adjusted Corsi For percentage as a pairing, making them easily the worst pairing on the team that had played at least 100 minutes together.
Stone ranked near the bottom of the league in other categories as well.
He wasn’t great at exiting the zone or entering the offensive zone. The team got hammered with him on the ice. Name a statistic and he was underperforming, and that’s not even counting the general statistics like goals and assists.
I went digging for any shred of evidence to support the Stone trade for CGY.
— Sean Tierney (@ChartingHockey) February 21, 2017
Poor shot differential. Poor work on exits. I've got nothing. pic.twitter.com/NqfF8y1HGE
Michael Stone is a lot of things.
He’s a great dude. He and his wife were amazing in the community. He had one on-the-cusp season where he contributed a lot to the offense.
Injuries happen, however, and beyond that one season there was no real track record for Stone achieving point totals of that caliber. He was already slow before blowing out his knee and it’s likely he will now be slower moving forward.
Stone would be a solid bottom pairing or sixth defenseman on a good team, but the only place he would be eating up minutes in the top four is here in Glendale or on another team similarly struggling.
The Arizona Coyotes can’t overvalue their own players when it comes to trading. A third round pick (and a conditional fifth) doesn’t sound bad at all when you really look at the numbers.
Next: Grading Alex Burmistrov's First 15 Games As A Coyote
John Chayka got what Michael Stone was worth and some would argue he got even more than he deserved.
Talk of a higher draft pick or bigger package is unrealistic given Stone’s showing in his return from injury. And now, thanks to his departure a more skilled offensive defenseman with higher upside will be taking his place on the blue-line.